


Now What?

by Rehearsal_Dweller



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types, The Heroes of Olympus - Rick Riordan
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-25
Updated: 2014-01-25
Packaged: 2018-01-10 00:07:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,338
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1152442
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rehearsal_Dweller/pseuds/Rehearsal_Dweller
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A vague, meandering, illogical little story, in a version of reality where the reward for saving the world was a chance to live in it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Now What?

**Author's Note:**

> I used that dumb, casual narrator from "Oh Look, They Get Stupider" again, since everybody seemed so fond of that.

It would never really be over.

Unfortunately, it didn’t exactly carry on in the same way (the world, the universe would not be able to survive another calamity like the last two – three?). But the universe was always ready to find new ways to self-destruct.

Okay, vague. Sorry.

Thing is, you get  _used_  to life throwing messes at you. You get used to the  _what now_  and the  _where’s the next fire_. It’s hard to be anything less than a hyper-aware hero once you’ve had to put that on enough times.

You’d think that after saving the world a time or two (or dealing with potentially world-screwing-up disasters every few months like clockwork), you could handle anything real life threw at you. Real life would be easy, calm, quiet.

You’d think that, probably, if you’d  _never met a teenager in your entire life._

So yeah, the world wasn’t  _literally ending_  anymore.

But that feeling? That the ground would just fall away and suddenly you’d be falling or drowning again, because the world was  _over_ , really over or at least close? That was never going away.

Only when you’ve saved the world a time or two, you’re used to that  _my life is over, this is it_  feeling. Only, y’know, literal.

But when it’s literal, you can handle it. Because you can and you have before.

Enter our protagonists: messy, angry, unstable, unusual _kids_ , who wouldn’t know a normal teenage life if it slapped them across the face.

They’ve done it, really done it, that saving-the-world thing. Their reward, this time around, was protection. A chance at a gods-given normal-ish, safe-ish life during the year.

None of them had any idea what to do with it.

Well, almost none.

“Where in  _Hades_  do you think you’re going?” Jason snapped, grabbing Nico di Angelo by the arm as he tried to run off from Camp after the big inter-Camp celebrations.

(Okay, in the middle. Right smack in the middle of a party he really didn’t want to be at. And, really, who could blame him? Everybody was  _hovering_  and the Seven kept grabbing at him and Reyna any time they tried to escape, because misery loves company.)

“Hades,” replied Nico, trying and failing to extricate himself from the older(?) boy’s grip.

“Okay, I walked right into that,” Jason said. “But why? Didn’t Percy’s parents offer to take you in? I mean, we’re all supposed to be safe, right? You could go to school!”

“Oh, yeah, that’s  _exactly_  what I want to do,” spat Nico. “Think about it, Grace, are  _you_  going to school? If we’re supposed to be  _safe_ , is that where you want to be? Wouldn’t you rather  _do_  something?”

Jason opened his mouth, then closed it again.

(Because, of course, Jason had been carefully avoiding thinking about what was going to happen next. He wasn’t quite comfortable just going back to Camp Jupiter, but he really didn’t quite fit right here either. But at 16 with no living family, where exactly else was there for him to go?)

“Look,” Nico said, much less confrontationally, “I can’t do that to myself. You _know_  I can’t do that to myself. Miss Sally and Paul, they’re great, but I can’t.”

Jason winced.  _Percy_. “Right, sorry.”

Jason felt like a bit of an idiot for letting that little detail slip his mind for a moment. And for that he was justified, considering how much time he spent _pestering_  and  _protecting_  for related reasons, oh so recently.

“Yeah, well,” said Nico. “I’m trying to do what’s best for myself for once. I’ve learnt the hard way that putting everybody else first -” he paused for a moment, uncomfortably aware of the fact that everyone present knew that ‘everybody’ here meant specifically one stupid person who was specifically twelve stupid yards away making out with his stupid genius girlfriend - “only ends badly for me.”

“What about bringing back Hazel?”

Nico smiled weakly. “Entirely selfish. I was looking for my other sister at the time.”

“Oh.”

Just then, Jason realised that he was still holding onto Nico’s arm. He let go suddenly, like he’d been burnt.

“You should think about what I said. You could probably do with thinking about yourself a bit, too,” Nico suggested. “And, if we don’t see each other again… it was nice knowing you, Jason Grace.”

“You, too, Nico.”

–

They didn’t see each other again for almost a year.

Actually, nobody saw Nico in all of that time.

(Gee, it was almost like he was  _avoiding_  them or something.)

By now even  _Percy_ had noticed something was up, and Percy Jackson is… not known for his attention to detail.

At this point, most everybody had gotten to a point past worrying.

No, that’s not quite right. Most everybody was still worried, but it had fallen to the sidelines. Their attempts at handling everyday life were just  _distracting_  and _overwhelming_ , okay? It wasn’t that they weren’t still occasionally whacked over the metaphorical head with sudden pangs of  _holy_ shit _Nico might be dead_ , it was just that between relationship issues and repeating years at school and trying to rescue immortals from magic islands, the immediacy of the whole thing just sort of… slipped their minds.

(Those, by the way, were certain people’s individual self-destructs for the year. No evil overlords hell-bent on killing the universe, just stupid annoying teenage problems and _school.)_

And then Nico di Angelo stumbled into Camp Half-Blood, half dead.

The only one who was actually  _at_  Camp Half-Blood at the time was Jason (well, technically Leo was there, too, but that hardly counted since Jason hadn’t seen him in four days because the other boy was shut up in the bunker, working), but the others weren’t in the dark long.

In case you were wondering, they found out when a frantic Jason IMed each of them in turn.

“You’re hovering,” Nico pointed out a few days later. They were sitting on the beach at a safe distance from the water while those of the others who’d shown up to fret with Jason splashed around.

“I am  _not_ ,” replied Jason, pointedly flopping onto the sand next to him.

“Yes, you were,” said Nico. “Jason, when you hover, you _literally hover_.”

_“Do not,”_  Jason muttered like a six-year-old.

Nico chuckled. “Anyway, I’m fine.”

“That’s debatable. What happened to taking care of yourself?”

Nico shrugged. “Other things seemed more important at the time.”

Jason frowned. “That sort of defeats the point of leaving. All you did was cut yourself off, without any of the benefits you talked about.”

“Hey, I stayed in touch with Hazel,” Nico said defensively. “What else have I got?”

“Me!” Jason replied. “And Reyna, if nobody else.” He frowned some more. He was getting good at that. “But you don’t have nobody else. Around month 8 of you being gone without trace everybody freaked.” He gestured to their friends in the water. “And they came back when I told them you were here.”

“Touching.”

“All I’m saying, man, is don’t do that again.”

Nico leaned back, stretching out and staring up at the clouds. “No promises.”

Jason scooted over and laid down next to him. “Just sticking around for a while would be okay, too.”

“I thought you wanted me to go back to putting myself first?”

“Spending time with people who love you is putting yourself first.”

Nico leaned up on his elbow a little bit to give Jason a sort of funny, uncomprehending look, but Jason didn’t see because of the angle of the sun.

(Or at least, he would say that to himself later, trying to explain away any possible  _feelings_  that any actual eye-contact with the younger(?) boy might bring about.)

They stayed like that for a nice, long time, until the others trooped out of the water, dripping wet (except for Percy), and dug out the picnic dinner they’d brought out with them.

For one long, glorious afternoon, nobody’s world was ending. Not even a little.

They could get used to this.


End file.
